


Anyway.

by aireyv



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: "i-it's not like I like you or anything baka", Fluffy Ending, Jealousy, M/M, Nagging, totally platonic work relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 07:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13406355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aireyv/pseuds/aireyv
Summary: “Liquid Snake has had to spend more time than usual with Ocelot, and Psycho Mantis gets jealous.” Ho ho ho fools.





	Anyway.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ocelotisprettygay](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ocelotisprettygay).



> This is just a copy-pasted repost of the same fic I took down. Sorry! I know you requested it NSFW but you're getting this functionally G-rated fill (T for swearing) because... you know, circumstances... :/
> 
> anyway, doubly sorry if you wished for this in the hopes that someone _besides_ me would fill it. "Mantis getting jealous over Oceliquid" is basically my Thing™ anyway so  
> ...well, it _was_ , at any rate...
> 
> ummm. It could be worse!!

Mantis understood _perfectly well_ that sometimes Liquid needed to spend time with Ocelot for work reasons. He knew that. That was reasonable, and expected, and there was absolutely no reason for him to get upset about it.

He got upset about it anyway.

The trouble was that he had no one to take his anger out on, not really. FOXHOUND’s isolated nature left him with no disposable goons to antagonize; he couldn’t pick on Wolf, Raven, or Octopus as a form of stress relief because they wouldn’t tolerate it and would just get him in trouble with Liquid. Ocelot was out of the question because, well… he was Ocelot… venting his frustration by being mean to him would be even _more_ frustrating because Ocelot could impassively brush off everything short of killing him. Which wasn’t an option, unfortunately.

That left Liquid. This was all his fault, anyway, he chose to spend so much time with Ocelot even though he knew it annoyed Mantis. So Mantis nagged him about it.

“You’re being _ridiculous_ ,” Liquid scoffed. “I need all the help I can get with this rebudgeting issue, and I don’t see _you_ contributing anything.”

“But—“

“But nothing. Ocelot’s making himself useful. Stop harassing me about him, I don’t even understand what your problem is.” He stalked off, muttering about how whatever happened between Mantis and Ocelot back at the KGB was none of his business and he ought to be left out of their protracted bitching about each other entirely.

Mantis restrategized. If Liquid wouldn’t listen to reason - _reason_ as far as Mantis was concerned, anyway - then he’d just find another way to keep him away from Ocelot. No, not poisoning the freak. Mantis already knew that Ocelot had crazy high substance tolerance, didn’t matter which substance it was. And directly sabotaging what Liquid and Ocelot were working on together would be a bad idea, mostly because Liquid would figure out it was him and be _furious_.

It was Liquid’s free time that Mantis had to go after. His free time was currently, mysteriously occupied by the cat bastard, presumably by virtue of the fact that they were already hanging out over work and it just casually progressed into… watching movies or something… Mantis didn’t really care. Liquid should be spending that time with _him_. It was only _fair_. Ocelot didn’t have a symbiotic psychic bond with the man, _Mantis_ did, that meant he had a _right_ to Liquid — didn’t it?

“You just want attention,” Liquid said flatly, folding his arms.

“What?” Mantis said, trying not to sound defensive. “No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

“What _what_ is all about?” Mantis said, playing innocent. This wasn’t going well and they were only about fifteen seconds into the conversation and Ocelot was watching them bicker with raised eyebrows…

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know! You’re upset I’ve been spending time with Ocelot instead of _you_.”

“I—- no, I only—“

“I can’t believe you’d pull this sort of _bullocks_ after you called me an attention whore last month.”

“Boss, that was a _month_ ago!” And it was _true_.

Liquid turned on his heel, tossing his head up in the air. “Come on, Ocelot,” he sneered, striding off down the hallway in the direction of the breakroom. “Mantis doesn’t _need_ me, he can just entertain _himself_.”

“Boss,” Mantis called reproachfully after him, but he was gone. And Ocelot, unpleasant as always, gave Mantis an extremely smug look before following after Liquid.

It was not Mantis’ fault that all the lights in the hallway chose that moment to blow out.

He was left to helplessly stew in his frustration. Despite his protests, privately he knew Liquid was right - he _did_ just want attention. Specifically he wanted _Liquid’s_ attention and he didn’t _like_ that _Ocelot_ was getting it instead of him. He felt entitled to it. He felt he _deserved_ it, he’d done so much for Liquid, more than old man Ocelot had ever done. Or at least Mantis’ efforts where Liquid was concerned where infinitely more heartfelt than anything Ocelot did — he still wasn’t entirely sure that Ocelot wasn’t just trying to manipulate Liquid for something, but Liquid had stopped listening to Mantis’ “petty, paranoid conspiracy theories” a while ago.

So his ordinarily foul temper got even fouler, to the point of just locking himself in his quarters for days at a time to brood. A couple times Liquid tried to draw him back out of it but they’d both dug in their heels about the Ocelot thing. This was now an idealogical battle between Mantis’ craving to spend time - _alone_ \- with his best friend and Liquid’s stubborn desire to not let Mantis even remotely dictate how he handled his social life.

In the end it was Wolf of all people who called Mantis out.

“You are jealous,” she informed him.

Mantis was taken aback, and regretting coming skulking out of his room. “Excuse me?” he said indignantly.

“You are literally just jealous that the boss is spending time with Ocelot because you have a thing for him.”

“What?! I do _not_ have ‘a thing’ for—“

Wolf rolled her eyes. “It’s _incredibly_ obvious, Mantis.”

“But I— I don’t! How _dare_ you even _imply_ something like that!”

“What, are you really in denial about this? I have never seen someone with as large on crush on someone as you do on the boss.”

Mantis sputtered. “I do not have a crush on the boss!”

“Yes you do,” Wolf said brightly, and Mantis was fully aware that she was just teasing him at this point, but she did think she had a point. “You know I am not judging you, it would be hypocritical of me to judge someone for being interested in members of the same sex—“

“I am- I am _not_ ‘interested in’ Liquid in _that_ way.” He crossed his arms haughtily.

“Oh, be honest with yourself, Mantis. Really, it is completely understandable, with how close the two of you are…”

Mantis snorted. “Clearly we are not _that_ close,” he said acidly, “if he’d rather be spending all his time with Oce-“

“Ah ah ah, there’s that jealousy again,” Wolf chided, shaking her head.

“Jealousy! It is _not_ jealousy. I am not _jealous_.”

“Yes you are. Everyone knows it.”

Mantis frowned behind his mask and took a quick look in Raven and Octopus’ minds. …fuck. They’d both come to the same conclusion Wolf had, except without the attempt to ‘solve the problem’.

“You are jealous, and afraid that the boss likes Ocelot more than he likes you.”

“Don’t be absurd! I— of course Liquid likes _me_ more than he likes Ocelot, he just… ah…”

Wolf sighed. “Listen, Mantis,” she said, throwing an arm around his shoulder - which he stiffened at and attempted to squirm out of, but she didn’t care, “have you tried… actually _talking_ to him about this?”

“Of course I have,” Mantis said sourly, wondering how well he’d be able to get away with psychokinetically shoving Wolf to the other side of the room. He probably couldn’t. “I told him quite plainly that I do not like him hanging out with Ocelot.”

“I really don’t think you actually needed to tell him _that_. I meant, have you talked to him about _why_ you are upset with him spending his free time with Ocelot when he is already spending so much time with him over the budget cut thing?”

“…I detest Ocelot, isn’t that reason enough?”

“…you are so dense.”

Wolf unceremoniously exited the conversation. It took Mantis a good thirty seconds to realize that she was planning to go to Liquid and tell him _herself_ that Mantis was “just being jealous about all of this” — at which point he ran out into the hallway after her.

“Don’t you _dare_ tell him something like that!!”

She whirled around, hands on her hips. “I am tired of watching _both_ of you be obstinate _children_ about this! I’ll bet Ocelot is not very comfortable with it, either, being the fulcrum of some sort of love triangle when he is really just trying to be social…”

“Oh, please. I am sure that Ocelot _planned_ this.”

“Well, in that case you had better subvert his plans, shouldn’t you? Unless you think he planned to push you and the boss _together_ …”

Mantis opened his mouth, then closed it. If this _was_ some plan of Ocelot’s then he was certainly trying to drive a wedge between Mantis and Liquid, for his own nefarious reasons, whatever those were. (Mantis had no clue aside from being sure they existed.)

“Fine,” he said with a huff. “I will go talk to Liquid about this. … _myself_.”

_I knew that would work_ , he heard Wolf think, and slunk away from her irritably.

Not that he’d ever really admit it, but Mantis couldn’t quite pluck up the nerve to confront Liquid over this for almost the rest of the day. In the end Wolf intervened again, but thankfully she just told Liquid that Mantis had an important personal issue he needed to go talk to him about. Which was rude of her to do but to be honest Mantis hadn’t been sure what he would have ended up doing if she _hadn’t_ done that.

“Alright,” Liquid said in a slightly scolding tone, “what is it _now_ , Mantis?”

“Don’t take that tone of voice with me.”

“What are you being so defensive about? Wolf told me you had something important to say to me.”

“I am not— no, I mean, yes, I do, boss.”

Liquid narrowed his eyes. “This had better not be related to Ocelot.”

“…”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“I don’t like you spending so much time with him!” Mantis snapped. “You don’t even know what he wants from you!”

“Because _you_ do?” Liquid snapped back, “you can’t read his mind and it’s not like he’s _asked_ anything of me, he’s just being helpful!”

“That does not mean you have to go watch his stupid Westerns with him!”

“They’re not bad movies, Mantis.”

“You are wasting too much time with him!”

“Better him than you, with the way _you’ve_ been acting lately!!”

Mantis gasped. “How dare you! I cannot believe you’d say something like—”

“You _have_ been such a _prick_  all week, Mantis, this is getting ridiculous.”

“—well, I wouldn’t act like this if you would just give me the time of day once in a while instead of cavorting with Ocelot!”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing right _now?_ God, I thought you had something _important_ going on, but nooo, it’s just more _bitching_ about Oc-“

“This _is_ important!”

“No it isn’t! It’s none of your business who I hang out with!!”

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it’s _not!!_ ”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Octopus yelled from the next room over, “just fuck already!”

Mortally offended, Mantis stormed off. Vaguely he heard Liquid think that that was _not_ how he wanted this conversation to end, but if he pursued Mantis at all then he only did so for a few steps.

Mantis locked himself in his quarters again and refused to come out at all costs — even responding to Raven’s flat “What are you going to do if you have an assignment?” with a lot of upset shrieking about how Liquid could just handle _that_ by _himself_. Everyone decided to give him a wide, wide berth, with the exception of Wolf, who once again swooped in to chide her teammates about “are you or are you not _grown men_ ” and forced Liquid to at least knock on Mantis’ door and ask him if he was okay.

“Why don’t you ask _Ocelot_ that?!”

“Mantis, that doesn’t even make sense. Open the door.”

“Go away.”

Liquid briefly considered bringing Ocelot here to sort this out — if Mantis was really _that_ upset about this situation, then he could sort it out with _him_.

“I will kill you first, boss.”

Liquid huffed. “Mantis, for the love of— you’re being immature.”

Mantis didn’t respond. Okay. An extremely high-strung and frequently psychotic telepath with incredible offensive capabilities was probably the _last_ person FOXHOUND needed sitting around stewing in his own petty hang-ups. So if nothing else, as commander Liquid needed to take responsibility for this situation.

“How heartless of you!” Mantis yelled at him through the door. “I see how it is. I’m just an asset to you, no wonder you don’t want to spend time with me!”

“Mantis, open the door,” Liquid said, jiggling the handle. “Come on. I want to spend time with you _now_ , alright?”

“Don’t even start with that, boss! You clearly care nothing for me. Go away.”

Liquid took a long breath through is nose. Control his temper, be the reasonable one here… he _was_ commander, he had a duty to… to… he kicked the bottom of the door, leaving a sizeable dent in it but not breaking it down - yet. “Goddammit Mantis!” he shouted, “open the bleeding door, I’m trying to fix your stupid problems!!”

“Go away!”

“You absolute—!”

“Boss,” Ocelot said behind Liquid. Liquid whirled around.

“And what do _you_ want?” he snarled.

Ocelot raised his hands. “Nothing, nothing. But you know, boss, I’m good at interpersonal situations and I thought I’d offer you a little bit of friendly advice—“

Mantis’ door wrenched open. “No friendly advice,” he hissed, “no friendly _anything, Ocelot_. Leave. This has nothing to do with you.”

“…and that’s how you get Mantis to open his door,” Ocelot said with an unnecessary flourish.

One of Mantis’ eyes twitched. He tried to slam the door closed again, but Liquid was faster than he was and reacted on instinct, sticking his foot in the doorway and hiding a wince as it slammed into it.

“Come on, Mantis,” he said, giving him the same wide-eyed, innocent look that usually worked… when the man was in a good mood… “I just want to talk.”

“I do not!” Mantis said, abandoning the door entirely and retreating further into his quarters. “I am fed up with you.”

“Jesus, what’s the matter with you?” Liquid glanced over his shoulder at Ocelot, who just shrugged and started walking off down the hallway, although Liquid more than suspected he was going to keep himself within earshot of whatever happened next. Sighing, Liquid let himself into Mantis’ room anyway. “I know this is about Ocelot somehow — so what if I’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately, what’s wrong with that? How could it possibly make you so angry?”

Mantis had curled up in a corner of the room, facing towards the wall. Liquid could practically see him bristling at being addressed.

“I told you. I do not like seeing you with Ocelot,” he muttered darkly.

“I know, but we’re just… Mantis, tell me honestly, what’s the impression you get of Ocelot and I…?”

“…”

“If this is about the budget cut, I’ll have you know that we’re almost done with—“

“I don’t _care_ about the budget cut. I don’t care about what you have to do in your work. …I just do not like how you spend all your free time with him…”

“I don’t spend _all_ my—“

“Yes you do. Even though I would like to be with you - I just get ignored, how could you do this to me…?!”

“Erm…”

Not really sure of what to do in this situation, Liquid uncomfortably sat down behind Mantis. Wondered if he should put a hand on his shoulder or something. Mantis didn’t react to that thought, so he decided to go for it.

“Mantis…” he started, patting his back awkwardly.

“I hate Ocelot.”

_Here we go again_.

“I just want to spend time with you, and here he’s taken you away from me. You pay so much attention to _him_ and I just want you to _talk_ to me. I thought you _liked_ me.”

“I _do_ like you,” Liquid said, “surely you can see as much in my mind.”

“I don’t care what I see in your mind! Your mind is a _mess_ , Eli.” (Liquid had to bite his tongue to keep himself from retorting to the insult or protesting the use of his given name.) “I can’t stand how you’ve been acting.”

“You’ve hardly been a saint yourself, Mantis.”

“…shut up. Get out of my quarters.”

Again Liquid bit his tongue. If he didn’t calm Mantis down now then he would probably be stuck with this moodiness and extra complaining about Ocelot for the next six months. “If you wanted attention, Mantis, you could have just said so instead of being all defensive about it.”

“I was not— hmph. This is not about attention.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

“I do not like you paying so much attention to Ocelot.”

“…”

“I don’t like you spending time with him, I don’t like you talking to him, I don’t like the way you _look_ at him, Eli. Like he… like he _means_ something to you.”

“Oh, sure,” Liquid snorted, “it’s alright for you to get snippy because you _think_ I’m treating you like ‘just an asset’, but you’re upset with me in the _first_ place because I’m _not_ treating Ocelot like that?”

Mantis sat up and glared at him, swatting his hand away. “He’s just a horrible old man who never would and never _could_ care for you the way I do!”

“Mantis,” Liquid said, exasperated, “you’re acting like he and I— wait. Wait. Oh my god.”

“…wait, no,” Mantis said, jumping up, eyes wide. “Eli— boss, no. This conversation is over—“

Liquid also stood, grabbing Mantis by the shoulders. “You’re _jealous!_ ” he said, half-laughing in his face. “You think Ocelot and I are— for God’s sake, Mantis, you’d think being _psychic_ would _preclude_ this kind of miscommunication.”

“That isn’t what I— I’m not jealous! Don’t misinterpret me, I don’t feel anything for you in _that_ way.”

“Oh? Then what’s the point of getting all jealous over Ocelot, then?”

“I… I just… I…”

“I think it’s flattering, you know.”

“…shut up!! This is not about… agh… I cannot believe this.”

Liquid grinned at him. “You’re jealous,” he said brightly, “you’re possessive and territorial… you feel threatened by Ocelot—“

“Stop that. It is not like that.”

“—because you have a big embarrassing _crush_ on me.”

Mantis hid his gas mask in his hands. “Stop it!”

“You’re so cute when you’re flustered.”

“Gh…”

Liquid abruptly pulled him into a hug, still chortling to himself. “You should have just said so from the start,” he whispered in his ear. “I wouldn’t have bothered with Ocelot if I knew I could get _you_ to dote on me in my spare time.”

“I never said I would…” Mantis trailed off with a sigh, then rested his head on Liquid’s shoulder. “You are the worst, boss.”

“I’m not the one who just had some kind of protracted emotional breakdown over the course of three bloody weeks.”

“…one that you did nothing but ignore.”

“Again: You could have just told me up front that you were jealous instead of denying everything.”

“Nn.”

Liquid nuzzled him. “I feel the same way, Mantis,” he said suddenly.

“…gah. Don’t say that out loud, boss, I was still clinging to my denial about that—“

“Oh, what’s the matter? Look, how many years have been together? _Decades_ , even? I should say that… getting a little infatuated with each other… that’s only natural, isn’t it?” He smirked. “Only to be expected.”

“You know I don’t like…” Mantis sighed, shook his head. “No, I think there’s a more pressing issue right now…”

“What is it now?”

“The fact that we have _Ocelot_ to thank for putting this all out on the table…”


End file.
